I don’t know about you but I have had enough of these email subject lines that try to trick you into opening them. In their efforts to win readers many internet marketers seem to have resorted to using email subject lines that – well – just suck.

Some of the email marketing subject lines that I have had flooding into my inbox recently are:

• Urgent please

• Important notice

• Commission notice

• New Facebook message

• Notification of ClickBank sale

• Get your commission

• Notice for (your name)

•  Re. Your Order

• Open ticket

• Confidential message for (your name)

•  Special delivery

• Priority message

• You are a fool

• Claim your money

• Log in details

• You still up?

• Payment received, download link enclosed

I’m sure you can add some others to the ever growing list. The thing is that once you have been tricked into opening one of them you just don’t fall for it again so I fail to see the point. I unsubscribe straight away from lists run by marketers who use these methods and I am sure I am not alone in this.

I have even seen some of the so called “gurus” suggesting some of these email subject lines  for the suggested emails they give on their affiliate pages. They may get you a high open rate in the beginning but not for long as people get wise to them.

We all want to get our emails opened and read. A lot of effort goes into building a list and sending out great content but it’s frustrating when it all goes to waste if your email is not opened.

Here’s a few dos and don’ts of subject lines.  

Avoid subject lines that:

1. Insult the reader. Many markers believe that people always rise to their defense, and thus resort to provoking them to such action. Thousands of mails are sent daily, calling the reader names such as fool, stupid, ignorant and many others in this line.  The truth is that you cannot expect any positive response from someone you just insulted. Yes, they might open the email just to see why you are calling them names, but they will eventually run away from you and buy from your competitors.

2. Are too generic. Readers want to identify with you and your brand, and the best way to do this is by personalizing the subject so that it seems relevant to the reader. Avoid emails that have generic topics. Best to tell your readers what they the email is about.

3. Are wordy. In many cases people have email systems that simply do not show many words of the subject line. Many email programs cut off the subject line at 50 characters and that includes spaces!

4. Consist of one word like “Hi”. These fail to communicate what the email is about.

5. Beg for attention like “Please read this”, “Urgent”   It often has the opposite effect

Good subject lines

Generally, a good email subject line is the one that:

1. Addresses the problem of the reader by offering a solution. A subject line such as ‘Lose 10 pounds in a month through dieting’ is good enough to draw the attention of the reader. People get too much e-mail to waste time on anything that doesn’t convey a benefit for them/

2. Speaks directly to the reader. A subject such as ‘Donate a dollar and save starving millions’ sounds more friendly than ‘1 Million lives could be saved if all Gmail account holders donated a dollar today’.

3. Summarizes the entire email. Do not play games; Subject lines are meant to tell the reader what to expect in the rest of the message.

4. Highlights the important details in the message. If the message you are giving involves important details such as names of prominent persons, dates and venues, highlight them in the subject line.

One idea that seems to be working at the moment is to start your subject line with a statement in brackets for example [Video] [Blog post] [Gift] [ Tip of the Week].  This can catch the readers attention straight away. The email will stand out just because most other subject lines that the your subscriber gets won’t have brackets.

At the end of the day you really have to test,test,and test.Split test too if your list is big enough. Everyone’s list is different so there is no magic formula that works for every list. You know your subscribers best so the solution to writing good email subject lines that get the results you want is to consistently test and tweak them.

One final tip is to study the email subject lines of the message that you receive. Which ones do you open and why? Use these ideas to craft your next subject line.

What tips have you got for writing email subject lines that get good open rates? Please share them with my readers in the comments.